RPT-NEWSMAKER-Unrepentant Mladic proud of his Bosnian "legacy"

But pressure was now piled on Serbia's pro-European BorisTadic to prove it was serious about confronting war crimes asthe price for starting the process of joining the EuropeanUnion.

When two sentries at an army complex in Belgrade weremysteriously shot dead in October 2004, newspapers said they hadbeen silenced by diehards because they had seen Mladic. Afterthis his support began to dry up, and he went underground.

When he was finally arrested, he put up no resistance. Hisright arm was lame, the apparent result of an untreated stroke.At the tribunal he has appeared by turns arrogant and senile.

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Yet life at the detention centre seems to have helped hiscondition. Internees have a gym, art rooms, tennis andbasketball courts, a kitchen, phone booths, television, booksand newspapers, and can order food from a Balkan shop.

Birthdays and religious holidays are celebrated. Men whowere sworn enemies in the 1990s now sit down at the same table.

In court last year, Mladic smiled as a judge read outcharges that his men had taken 200 U.N. peacekeepers hostage ashuman shields in 1994 to thwart NATO bombing, a notoriousexploit.

But he is not as articulate as his mentors Karadzic andMilosevic, who made long self-justifying speeches at theirtrials. Last July he was ejected from court for heckling thejudge who read out a charge of genocide and entered a not-guiltyplea on his behalf.

"No, no, no!" he shouted. "Don't read it to me, not a singleword."

Milosevic died in detention on March 11, 2006, a few monthsbefore a verdict in his trial for genocide and other war crimesin Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Karadzic is still on trial.

The trial of Mladic may serve justice by exposing the truthabout the Bosnia war, but reconciliation in Bosnia is far off.

The U.S.-brokered Dayton accords of 1995 stopped thebloodshed, dividing Bosnia into a Muslim-Croat federation and aSerb Republic. But they have not healed ethnic divisions orprevented the steady rise of Bosnian Serb separatism.

Most Bosnian Serbs are convinced that Mladic is innocent. Orthey say that even if he did commit atrocities, he was no worsethan enemy commanders, and he was defending the Serb people. Ifhe is found guilty, it will only prove their conviction that theHague tribunal is utterly biased against Serbs.

"I am very old man and I am close to my end as far as myhealth is concerned, and I am not important," Mladic told thetribunal last year. "It matters what kind of legacy I will leavebehind, among my people."